Legacy gang of three try to take on Google

Commentary: Will three rivals in a deal pass antitrust muster?

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) — AOL Inc., Microsoft Corp. and Yahoo Inc. have formed an Internet display advertising partnership in the hopes that by joining together, the three weaker Internet players have a better chance taking on behemoths Google Inc. and third party ad networks.

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Earlier Tuesday, the three companies said they plan to make it easier and simpler to buy and sell premium online display advertising. The ad networks operated by Yahoo
YHOO, +0.85%
Microsoft
MSFT, +1.57%
and AOL
AOL
will offer each other’s premium, non-reserved online display inventory to their respective advertising customers. See Yahoo, Microsoft and AOL news here.

The companies added on a conference call that they will still compete with each other, and that the deal was not formed in reaction to any rivals, such as Google
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“This is about bringing together high-quality inventory in an open environment,” said Rik van der Kooi, vice president of Microsoft’s advertising business group, on a conference call with reporters, in a likely dig at Google. “This isn’t really in response to anybody in particular.”

The companies said they will integrate each other’s real-time bidding technologies to make the availability of non-reserved inventory easier by early 2012. The highest price for an ad will still win in this system.

It’s not clear, though, how the antitrust regulators will view this deal.

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